


Come Home

by Rabentochter



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aging, Break Up, Established Relationship, Heartbreak, Hopeful Ending, Immortality, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loss of Powers, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pining, Racism, Sad with a Happy Ending, Self-Loathing, a small dosage of fluff in the end, i mean i guess in a kind of way, in a kind of way, in my eyes its happy, look i got told this is more fitting, pfft xD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 10:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19271218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabentochter/pseuds/Rabentochter
Summary: It had been a while since Loki had been left from Anthony, and he was starting to get old. He could feel it.





	Come Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [STARSdidathing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/STARSdidathing/gifts).



> I remember writing this during mad sprint April. I had reached the point where I had no prompts/ideas anymore and looked at the Frostiron prompts archive and found _this_ and found this gem from Stars 😋
> 
> Thank you so much to [Ehtar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Ehtar/pseuds/Raven_Ehtar) for beta'ing this ❤ 
> 
> And ... enjoy? ❤

He had been in love with Anthony for centuries now. Years that they had spent in hate, decades they had spent in love, many centuries they had spent in a blissful and happy marriage after they had given each other their “Yes, I do,” and whispered sweet things in the night. 

More centuries they had spent apart and still did. 

Whenever May came by, Loki’s heart cracked and broke, because in this month he had not only met Anthony first in Stuttgart and thrown him out of the window in his penthouse in New York, Anthony also had asked to be separated from him. 

He had been unhappy. Frustrated. Anthony only wanted to see what it was that made him feel like that, what made him feel bound and stuck, and chose to discover the crux of the problem by leaving. 

It had hurt Loki so much, he managed not to cry. He managed to give only a weak nod, a bitter smile and wished him goodbye, and that he would still be here should Anthony choose to come home one day. 

“I can’t do this,” Anthony had whispered and had rubbed a hand over his face. “I feel stuck, Loki. Everything is frustrating and I don’t know how to cope.” 

“I am sorry,” Loki had replied. _Am I not enough to make you feel better?_ But he didn’t need to ask that, he already knew the answer. And that was a ‘No.’ Because people either didn’t feel comfortable with him around or had to leave him because he was Loki. And Loki just wasn’t enough or didn’t cater enough to peoples’ wishes. 

“I can’t …” 

“I understand,” Loki replied, although he didn’t understand. It had been a lie. Like so often. Like he was a lie, a very bad one and only looked appealing because of the pale skin he had been granted with. A lie that was supposed to make him feel better and have him fit in better, as well. 

But that had just been another lie, there had been no fitting in for Loki. 

They had mocked and laughed at him, dismissed him as useless and many more things that just welled up again, because the one he loved and coveted with all his heart would abandon him as well. 

“Thank you.” And Anthony had looked so relieved, it nearly broke him. “I am sorry that I have to do this, Loki.” 

“You do what makes you feel better,” he whispered and clutched one of his arms tightly. “And when you feel better, come back.” 

Anthony had smiled, nodded, took his ring off, placed it on the table and left him. 

The ring had first lived on Anthony’s pillow on their bed, but soon Loki couldn’t sleep in it anymore. The ring seemed to mock him, it had to leave to the drawer.

Loki’s mouth pulled into a bitter smile. Anthony had felt sorry for leaving him, breaking up with him, leaving Loki alone like so many had done before him-  
but he had not felt sorry enough to come home yet. 

No. 

Instead he had taken a liking to exploring the universe, and then settled down and lived his life without Loki. 

Oh, did it hurt. But he couldn’t tell Anthony to come home, he wouldn’t force it because it only mattered when Anthony came back to him willingly. He didn’t wish for a sad and forced relationship like his parents had had. Born and raised upon a bonfire that one day would glimmer out – 

Like his relationship had done. 

Loki was only glad that Anthony didn’t take a new lover or partner. 

The ring on his finger never left and Anthony’s was still in the drawer next to their bed. 

Loki barely slept in it. 

It was ridiculous to avoid it, but he only slept in it when Anthony was there. When his self-destructive tendencies got the better of him again and Loki would come to his aid. 

Heal his wounds, wash the grim from his body and made him feel better. And when the sun rose, Anthony would stand up without another word, just a sad smile on his face, stroke with his thumb over Loki’s face and leave once more. 

Until the circle started anew. 

Loki was 4,587 years old when he felt _old_ for the first time. 

Long had it been since his hair was only black. There was more grey in his hair than white, and the black streaks were only visible at night. Sometimes he barely recognised himself in the mirror anymore and wasn’t that just terrible? 

Anthony had not come home for millennials. He had only ever returned when Loki brought him home. 

He still loved Anthony. 

He did. He had never taken another into his bed even when offers had been made. 

Thor introduced him to a bloke and another but always had Loki politely declined. 

Anthony was roughly 3,000 years old. Loki was older. It was natural that Anthony felt imprisoned by their longevity of life while Loki was used to it. He was young still and had to explore, had to find himself. 

And when he saw that Anthony was getting in trouble again, it had been with hurting limbs and a distracted mind that he stood up and put on his old helmet. 

It looked as old as he felt. But the helmet didn’t fit anymore, when Loki took a step forward, it wobbled too much and with a sad sigh, he had to take the helmet off and leave it behind.

It was just another piece of himself he was losing, that didn’t fit anymore. 

Calling his seiðr to himself was straining and welcoming at the same time and teleporting to Sakaar was exhausting beyond measure. 

Had this been how Odin had felt? 

Anthony was fighting and rapidly losing. Once upon a time Loki had joined him in the fight without a second thought, but now he really couldn’t do it anymore. He was getting old. 

With some strain he threw green tendrils at the other, made him stumble back so Anthony could get up. 

“Thanks.”

Loki nodded. He looked at Anthony. His brown hair and styled goatee were decorated with a few white streaks, but the fire in his eyes was still there, warm and fierce. 

He looked like when Loki had first met him. Gorgeous. Brave. Stubborn. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” 

“Do you even know me?” 

“No.” Anthony shrugged. “But you saved me. So can I invite you to a drink? It can also be just a cup of tea, if that’s what you prefer over alcohol.” 

“I don’t think I have the time for a drink.” 

“Someone waiting for you at home?” Anthony sounded curious. 

And Loki’s heart finally cracked. 

“Do you truly not recognise me anymore?” he whispered and his bones felt old, his nose cold and his eyes were tearing up hotly. 

Anthony squinted his eyes. Then they widened dramatically. “Loki?!” 

“Yes?” He felt a sob crawling up his throat. When did that happen? He had hoped Anthony still loved him enough to recognise him even without the helmet, but it seemed that it wasn’t the case. Loki had become a stranger to him in every single aspect. 

“I, I didn’t recognise you,” Anthony whispered. “You look so different to when we last met.” 

“It’s the white hair, isn’t it?” 

“No. I mean, a bit? Fuck, you looked younger when we last … met.” 

“Met.” Loki huffed a laugh. “When you left me once again, you mean.” 

“I didn’t want you to save me!” Anthony exploded. 

There were many words he said, many things he had apparently brooded over in his time alone, the time he spent in the company of others. Time he had obviously needed to complain about Loki in his thoughts, while Loki was pining for him on Alfheim and then breaking his heart by coming here. 

“I understand,” Loki interrupted him calmly. “I swear to you, this has been the last time I will save you.” He waved with his hand and small sparks danced. “I don’t think I’ll manage it anyway.” 

“Am I not worth it suddenly?” 

Loki sighed. “Anthony, you are worth everything. There’s barely anything that would stop me from coming to your aid, or visit you for a drink if that is what you would wish. But you are you and here, and I am at home. It is how it’s been for a long time now. And I don’t know if my heart can do this anymore.” 

His seiðr wasn’t likely to transport him such a long distance again, either. He knew that this perhaps was his last great trip before he was trapped forever to the Nine Realms, and soon the time would come when Alfheim would be the only thing he’d see. 

“Then-“

“Anthony Edward Stark,” Loki whispered. “I can only save you so many times and take care of you, heal and love you and see you leave until I shatter. It has been 196 years since we last met and you didn’t even recognise me this time. Nor did you recognise my seiðr. But I have to admit it’s not as pretty as it used to be anymore.” 

Loki sighed and his shoulders dropped. “I’ll return home now. Should you wish to come by for a tea, feel free to drop in. I’d be happy to see your face. Until then, may the Norns watch over your journey.” 

When Loki used his seiðr this time he left Anthony behind. He couldn’t take care of him now. He had done that for most of his life. It was time he took care of himself. 

His fingers were trembling. 

Their home had been a house on Alfheim, a beautiful spot. It was surrounded by trees, mountains were visible in the distance and they had more than enough space to get creative and let things explode. 

Loki sat down on the bench outside. 

Tears were flowing down his face and he couldn’t make himself stop. 

Had he changed so much in all those years that Anthony couldn’t even recognise him anymore? 

It hurt. 

Before that, Anthony had always seen him and whispered his name, bloodied as his mouth could be at times, even when he’d been delirious he could recognise Loki and his seiðr. 

But that was over now as well. 

And how ironic that Anthony had offered him a drink. Like he had done back in New York in his penthouse. 

He wrote Thor a letter that night, hoping to find distraction from his fractured heart. He only wished to know how he and Jane were faring, whether they still lived or if the Norns had already taken them. 

It had been an ongoing joke between them for more than a millennium now. 

He spilled out his encounter with Anthony in another letter, sealed it with wax and put it in the drawer, burying the ring in there even more. 

There were so many letters, everything Loki had ever seen and experienced with Tony, or just wished to share with him when only through paper and ink. 

It made him feel less alone and it made him feel as if Anthony was still interested in him. 

Gone were the days when Loki thought Anthony would come home to him. 

He probably never would. 

And sad as it was, it was also freeing to realise and come to peace with that. Norns, he was becoming old when he could think such things. Horrible. 

When the next year came, Loki’s glamour started to flicker and he really didn’t care. What did it matter whether he was an Aesir or a Jotunn? There was no one to tell him if he were a lie or a monster or would calmly tell him that it didn’t matter. 

Because it really didn’t matter. 

He was a lie and a monster, that was just it. 

When Jane died and he went to her funeral, helping his brother in his grief when his kids couldn’t do it, too caught up in their sorrow as well, he had to go to a mage on Alfheim and pay for a glamour. 

Only because time had passed and the war with Jotunnheim laid buried in the past of Asgard did that not mean that the Aesir had _forgotten_. There was still the old grudge and hate there and Loki had experienced it when they wanted to run him from Queen Jane’s burial. 

To be so old and fearing for your own life still, it was interesting. He took Thor home with him, he couldn’t stay there and Thor couldn’t stay because everything screamed and reminded him of Jane. 

Apparently he missed Anthony’s arrival by about three hours. 

Thor was mostly blind and his eyes were full with tears. The reason why he didn’t see Loki’s dropping glamour, only had his eyes on himself. That was okay, Loki told himself when he sat in the bathtub, because his wife had just died and he didn’t have time to worry about Loki. 

But there also was _no reason_ to worry about Loki. 

Loki was fine. Generally more blue and cold than pale and warm but that was fine. He was fine with getting up each morning and bringing Thor into the bathtub, exhausting his seiðr until he had none left to clean the living room anymore. 

“You still have your wedding photo in the bedroom,” Thor mumbled. 

“I do.” 

Thor’s eyes teared up. “I’m so sorry, Loki. That he left you. And not just once.” 

Loki stared in his cup. Not replying, crying instead. 

“I would have never taken him for the man who’d abandon you. He always seemed like a loyal man to me.” 

“He is,” Loki mumbled and that was the last thing he said for this day. 

Because although Anthony was gone, he still loved him even when he didn’t deserve Anthony and wasn’t enough to make him come home. But that was no surprise because the time had to come when Anthony would realise that there were others who were more worthy of him. He really did deserve better than a seiðr user who started to lose his seiðr with each day more. 

Two years later, Thor died in his bed, a smile on his face and his pale blue eyes looking at his photo he had of Jane. 

Loki sent a message to Thor’s kids and they brought Thor home. 

Loki couldn’t attend. 

The mage on Alfheim refused to do such an exhausting spell again and there was no one else Loki trusted with that. 

Maybe it was time to stay here in the house and whisper Thor’s farewell into the night before he retired to his couch. 

He was alone once more. 

And when he had been used to solitude, now Loki was used to having someone chattering again, filling the silence and having someone in the house. 

Now only the sound of pages being turned filled the silence of the house. 

Loki’s inner silence was rendered numb when Thor’s kids sent him a letter with a warning, that there were rumours he had poisoned Thor’s food in his house and people were out to kill him. 

Because _surely_ the Jotunn would kill the weak Aesir with a dying body before he found his rest by himself. 

And Loki closed his eyes when no one came to help him and the wards he had installed millennia ago were the only thing keeping the brutes outside from his home. 

They wanted revenge for his brother and even when Asgard’s new king told them that Thor had died because of a broken heart, the most hateful ones remained and nobody took care of them in any way. Instead, they were left here at his house.

“I wonder whether you would recognise me now,” he whispered to Anthony in their wedding photo and softly blew the dust away. “Seeing as how old I am and my skin even more blue and monstrous.” He laughed softly. “I just wished you’d come home one last time out of your own will, Anthony. Please.” He started to sob. 

“My brother is gone. People want to kill me and I am alone. I don’t know what to do.” 

It was the only way he could fill his own silence before the dreadful thoughts overtook him, made him think of committing sins that would deny him the entrance to Valhalla. 

And while his hearing ability started to fail, his sense of vision didn’t and only because of that he noticed when his glamour flickered for one last time and he saw himself turn Jotunn. 

Loki closed his eyes and sat down. He felt older with each passing day, with each May that passed he felt himself break more and more and he had forgotten how Anthony smelled or how he looked when he smiled, teased Loki or let his fingers dance on his body. 

They had had a good time together and Loki wished for the Time Stone, just so he could go back a last time and see his love, _feel_ his love and be happy for one last time. 

Because Loki wanted to die, the walls seemed to suffocate him and even when Thor’s greatest avengers had left him alone now, he still heard them calling and screaming, declaring him as their greatest enemy and the killer of Thor, but they didn’t expect anything less from a wild beast. 

He had stopped counting how old he was. 

He simply was amazed he still was living because Aesir lived for around 5,000 years and Loki surely was already in his 4,900s. 

That would mean many centuries, perhaps even millennials with Anthony at his side. Only stolen moments Loki couldn’t bring himself to regret, for he had Anthony in their bed again in between. He had been able to save him from countless fiends and enemies and always had the chance to hold him close afterwards, felt Anthony’s breath on his neck and heard the damning words that this was a bad idea and Loki should just leave him. 

One time Anthony had been drugged, and while his stupid partner had fought against invisible enemies, he had told Loki the sweetest things that also hurt the most. Anthony always held May close to his heart and celebrated it and thanked whatever out there was for giving him Loki and apologised over and over again for leaving him but he had to, he would have gone mad otherwise. 

And Loki, deep in his heart, had wished for Thanos’ sceptre, just so he could bewitch Anthony to stay with him. 

What were blue eyes when he could have his love? 

But his respect for Anthony held him back and let him leave, morning after morning again until he had to step in again to save him. 

“I only want you to come home,” Loki mumbled and closed his eyes. “One last time, Anthony.” 

He felt so exhausted and tired, he only wanted to sleep. 

Sometimes Loki wondered whether the Jotunn drew more life power, because he started to shrink and his hair started to fall out quicker and his ears started to hum and faded everything out otherwise. 

He was turning deaf faster with every day and he only wished for Anthony in his arms, one last time, hear him talk and crack a joke before it was gone forever. 

Loki was tempted to look into the mirror and see what Anthony was up to, but he had promised to leave him alone and not to save him anymore. That was why he stayed his hands and then he realised that he hadn’t felt his seiðr for days now. Had not needed it either. 

He didn’t need to try, Loki knew his seiðr had died and he had become a Jotunn fully. 

There were too many differences between Loki of then and the Loki he was now, they had nothing in common anymore, solely the name perhaps. 

But was that really a reason? Nobody was here anyway to call him by his name so was he really Loki? 

Not someone else? 

Or was he just a nobody that had been forgotten? 

He just wanted Anthony. Wanted him home and here with him. He didn’t want anything else before he would pass and go to wherever the Norns would put him. 

“Just come home.” 

Loki wasn’t sure whether he was dreaming or not when he felt a warm hand on his back, trembling and wetness in his hair. 

It almost was as if there was someone with him. 

But that would make no sense, he had been alone for so long now, why would someone be there suddenly? It didn’t add up with his life. 

He blinked, awakening slowly. Blinked again. 

Turned carefully to his left side where warmth was and shock flooded through him. 

He had to be dead. 

There was no other reason why Anthony would be here otherwise, hair a mess of grey and brown, red eyes and crying as if he had seen someone die. 

“Anthony?” Loki’s voice sounded as old as he felt and he swallowed, tried again, hoping it sounded better. And he refused to pinch himself because if this was just a dream or he was dead, then … well, then he wouldn’t have Anthony here anymore, would he? He’d be gone then and Loki were alone once more.

The man nodded. Sobbed. 

“Loki.” 

He could hear it only very quietly, his deafness was too progressed by now but that didn’t matter. 

“You’re here.” 

And wasn’t that the only thing that mattered? 

He pulled Anthony in his arms even when his limbs told him not to do it, when they told him they were too old and too heavy, he still did it. Because this was his chance to have Anthony back in his arms. 

Anthony didn’t struggle, went willingly in his embrace and cried in Loki’s blue skin. 

Anthony had brought hearing aids with him. There also were glasses and lasers on DUM-E, should Loki not be able to see anymore and another feature for -, Loki didn’t even know. 

He could hear a little better and he really was glad for that because Anthony told him so many, many things that Loki needed to hear and had not realised he did. 

Anthony was sorry for leaving him, for leaving him alone for so long and wasting the time they could have had together with drinking and inventing. He called himself stupid because what did it matter when he could have had time with Loki? Now he had lost so many years and Tony was afraid to ask how many exactly. But Loki assured his love it didn’t matter because he was home now. 

Anthony insisted on his ring back, Loki was only too happy to provide, told him where he could find it and when Anthony didn’t return for many hours and fear had settled in Loki’s gut that he had been abandoned again, he went to their bedroom. 

Anthony sat there on the ground, reading the letters and was crying once more. Shame, he had said under tears, shame and guilt were drowning him and he felt bad for not having come home earlier but when he had come to his senses, he was too ashamed. 

Too proud. 

Too afraid that Loki wouldn’t welcome him back in his arms, in their home that held their love and all the promises they had made to each other. 

Loki waved it off, kissed the tears away and when his lips finally found Anthony’s – 

He felt like he had come home as well.


End file.
